Gov hit over new elex law
ALBANY — The Working Families Party isn’t about to throw in the towel.
The union-fueled third party says measures meant to boot minor parties from the ballot in New York will only embolden progressives and could spell trouble for Gov. Cuomo.
“With the subtlety of a sledgehammer, the governor and his allies tried to weaken New York’s progressives before he runs for office again — instead, his blatant abuse of executive power has only further energized progressives for 2020 and beyond,” WFP director Bill Lipton (photo) said Monday.
The pushback comes a day after the Public Finance Commission released a report laying out an unprecedented overhaul of the state’s campaign and election laws and creating a $100 million taxpayer-backed matching funds program for state races.
Among the changes is a measure that raises the vote threshold third parties need to maintain a spot on the ballot.
The new rule requires political parties to garner a minimum of 130,000 votes every two years to remain on the ballot — a significant jump from the current threshold of 50,000 every four years.
The move, championed by Democratic Party chairman Jay Jacobs, Cuomo’s appointee to the panel, will essentially spell the end for minor parties such as the Green and Libertarian parties. Last year, only the state Conservative Party, which got 253,624 votes, would have met the new threshold.
Cuomo and Jacobs defended the requirement, suggesting it is needed to keeps costs down and to ensure only credible candidates receive public matching funds.
“Achieving a higher threshold will require minor parties seeking “permanent party status” to actually campaign and ask voters to vote for their party’s nominee on their minor party line,” Jacobs wrote in the final report released Sunday.
He also notes that of the three states that allow cross-party fusion voting, both Connecticut and South Carolina require requalification of party status every year.
Cuomo last week offered little sympathy for minor parties impacted by the change.
“The Working Families Party, I think, would meet that threshold. You have to work to meet the threshold,” the governor said during an event on Long Island. “But if you are not meeting the threshold, then you shouldn’t be qualifying for public money anyway.”
The WFP has openly accused Cuomo of orchestrating the move as retribution against the progressive party for endorsing Cynthia Nixon, his primary challenger last year.
“The Public Financing Commission’s report makes clear that the governor’s principle motivation was to weaken the Working Families Party: there is no other reason to raise the threshold for third parties a full four years before public financing begins,” Lipton added.